Rogers-Wilson battered him around the head with a bat before pouring petrol over his bed and body and setting it alight, jurors were told.

He then fled the burning building, in doing so risking the lives of his other flatmates, it was claimed.

The court heard Mr Youngs was a computer programmer and part time DJ who lived in a squat in Northbrook Road, Lewisham.

Before he moved to London, Mr Youngs lived with his parents and younger brother and attended Heathside School in Weybridge and then Esher College.

John McGuinness, prosecuting, said: “The prosecution will say that Rogers-Wilson entered the bedroom of Brett Youngs in a house where they were both residing and beat him to death with a blunt instrument – probably a baseball or rounders bat.

“Then having done that he set fire to the body of Brett Youngs which caused the fire to spread to the bedroom and he did so using petrol.

“He then fled the premises and in doing so gave no warning to those who were also living in the house.

“This all happened at 4.30am when people were sleeping nearby.”

Mr Youngs’ body had been so badly burned in the fire he could only be identified by his dental records.

The court heard most of the flatmates at the squat had gone to a rave in Hertfordshire over the Bank Holiday weekend in late May 2003.

But Mr Youngs had decided to stay behind because drinking and drugs exacerbated his eczema.

Rogers-Wilson was also at the squat with his pet Doberman but left, saying he wanted to visit his parents.

Mr McGuinness said: “After the defendant left, one of the flatmates went up to the first floor of the flat and noticed Mr Youngs was working. He spoke to him. It was the last time anyone saw him alive.

“The defendant came back and said he had missed the last train to Cobham and said he was going to bed.

“Sometime between 12.30am and 1.30am one of the flatmates awoke to hear the sound of a muffled argument coming from the floor below. He heard Mr Youngs shout out.

“He also could hear the sound of dog paws scratching.”

Jurors heard that at 4.30am the remaining flatmates were woken by thick smoke coming from the first floor.

They fled the building before dialling 999.

They said Rogers-Wilson was nowhere to be seen and did not return to the flat for two days.

But records from the emergency switchboard showed Rogers-Wilson had phoned for help but stayed on the line just 13 seconds.

Mr McGuinness added: “A cell phone expert will say that call was picked up by a base station around 1km away from the house and that there was only a 1.8% chance the defendant was near the property when the call was made.

“We would say he was a significant distance from the house when the call was made.”

A post-mortem revealed Mr Youngs had been killed before the fire started as he had a depressed skull fracture and evidence of brain injury.

The charred remains of a baseball bat were later found in the flat.

Fellow housemate Christopher Smilas said Rogers-Wilson contacted him afterwards and sounded so frantic he decided to take a note of the conversation.

He said: “There was something not right about the way he was on the phone with me. I was with friends in the pub and they all felt the same. They knew something was up.

“He said his dog had woken him up and he had called 999 then fled the scene.

“He said the fire was ‘too hot and wild.’ He sounded very on edge and frantic and paranoid. He sounded confused and scared.

“I didn’t know what he was going to do next. It was as if he had gone incommunicado.”

The jury was also told Rogers-Wilson had been on bad terms with Mr Youngs, as he believed rave parties organised by the victim were ‘dark’.

Mr Smilas added: “They weren’t getting on at all. They were not good mates.

“For some reason Mike had got it into his head that Brett was into a dark scene and that his music was dark.

“He said they held dark parties. This was going on a long time before the fire. For a couple of years.”